The End of the Beginning
by Pelman
Summary: She sits at her desk, elbows propped up and head resting in hands. Her hair hangs limply over her eyes and she can't bring herself to care. Slight "Watershed" AU.


_A probable AU for the Season Finale that came into my head and wouldn't go away._

_EDIT: So, after watching the episode, all I can say is "Called it!" Although the details were a little different..._

* * *

She sits at her desk, elbows propped up and head resting in hands. Her hair hangs limply over her eyes and she can't bring herself to care. Unfinished paperwork lays scattered in a graveyard under her elbows and the light on her answering machine is blinking an angry red. The rain pounds a steady rhythm against the lone window in the room and she thinks to herself that she can't remember the last time she saw the sun.

Idly she considers that it is probably nature's punishment for so many politicians crowded in a single city.

Swallowing a treacherous lump that has somehow appeared in her throat she allows herself the barest brush of a finger against the cold metal that lies nestled on a chain against her heart. This. This is why she is here. There are other reasons tangled together but this is the root. She pushes other thoughts from her mind, thoughts connected to the lump in her throat that she has managed to make disappear.

With the barest hint of a sigh she removes her head from her hands and sits up straighter. Her chair squeaks as she shifts positions.

It is the only chair at the desk.

She picks up a pen and begins to poke half-heartedly at requisition forms. But even on the best of days such things are a tedious chore and today is not one of the best of days.

Today is one of the other type of days.

She gives up and turns to look out the window. It is small and high up on the wall but it still gives a view of the outside world. And it can't help what it is. It is just a window. Raindrops trickle down the glass and she remembers playing a game as a child, choosing raindrops to race against each other. Two raindrops, and the first to reach the bottom of the window was the winner. Most of the time neither raindrop would reach the finish. They would slowly lose momentum and stop, or be absorbed by a larger raindrop.

_Not just raindrops_, she thinks.

Utterly without warning a sob escapes from her mouth, and then another, before she presses the back of her hand tightly to her mouth and locks the treacherous sounds back up in her heart. But she can't lock up the thoughts.

She wishes she could see him. Just for a moment.

But he is not here so she grabs the pen again and grimly begins writing on the form in front of her, working methodically line by line and not. thinking. about. anything. else. at. all.

She slips into a stilted rhythm. The papers on her desk are gradually transferred to her outgoing file folder. The rain stops pounding on the window. A shadow appears across her desk. It matches so closely the one on her soul that for a few seconds she fails to notice it.

Then she looks up, and _he_ is standing in the doorway.

Her brain freezes, thoughts moving so quickly and rapidly that they overload her system. She forces out the only words that will come. "What are you doing here?"

He smiles, that infuriating way that only he can do, and leans casually against the door. The sharp electric light on the ceiling causes shadows to line his face. He brings his hands out from behind his back. "I brought you some coffee."

His eyes are blue enough to overwhelm even the harsh electric light shining down on them.

She splutters at her desk. What is he thinking? Coming all this way as though nothing had changed, as though it was still a month ago, as though…

_As though he still loved her_.

Ghosts of voices rise up in her mind and she hears again the angry tones, the harsh words, the _I thought you trusted me_ and the _Why can't you be happy for me_ and the _What does this mean for us_. But she cuts off the ghosts because he is moving from the doorway to her desk, the maddening smile still on his face as he offers her the cup of coffee.

She takes it automatically, the motion ingrained after hundreds of days of practice, and he sets his cup on the corner of her desk. Looking down at the steaming hot cup of coffee, she feels the first tendrils of the massive knot that has frozen her heart for the last month begin to unclench. .

He stays in front of her. His left shoe has scuff marks on it. She notices this because she is trying hard not to let other thoughts into her head. The traitorous lump is back in her throat and try as she might she can't make it go away.

"I came to bring you some coffee," he says, his voice gravelly and low, "But I also came because there was something I forgot to do before you left."

This brings her head up. His eyes catch hers and she can only watch as he gets down on one knee in front of her and pulls out a box from his pocket.

* * *

The sun is still not shining. The chair is still lumpy and the paperwork is still not finished. The electric light is still harsh and the lump in her throat will still not go away.

None of this matters.


End file.
